The Lexicographer's Rules

The very nice "Orange" at Diary of a Crossword fiend has posted a write-up about the New Words Open Mic at the Dictionary Society of North American conference in which I participated Saturday. It was tremendously goofy, as it was supposed to be. Be sure to check the comments—Charles Hodgson of Podictionary talks about how he'll use some material gathered at the conference in upcoming podcasts.

A long hand-wringing article from the Globe and Mail builds a strawman that seems to suppose that we, and our language, are growing lexically impoverished. The evidence is weak, the argument is wishy-washy, and the conclusion is lame. I'd fisk it line by line but it's hardly worth the effort.

Double-Tongued Dictionary got a mention in the Los Angeles Times today for citing the word alpha kitty.

William Safire quotes me again today:

Few terms, however, are applicable to a sexually attractive person of either sex. Hottie is not spelled with a y because -ie, the lexicographer Grant Barrett informs me, “is a classic diminutive or hypocoristic ending used for terms of endearment” (and hypocoristic is the Greek-based word for “called by pet names”).

The part in quotations is indeed what I told him and his lexical assistant, Juliet Mohnkern, but what comes before I did not say, because both -y and -ie are classic diminutive and hypocoristic endings, with -y being more common.

One data point that Bill did not have room for which is worth noting is that both the Dictionary of American Regional English and the Historical Dictionary of American Slang include entries for hot up, indicating that their editors feel it’s common enough in North America to be considered fully naturalized. DARE includes a first cite of 1942. This, of course, doesn’t mean that British influence on the term isn’t newly reinforcing its presence in our vocabularies.

This year at the Dictionary Society of North America conference there’s an exciting new event: a chance to bring your spiffy self-made words to the world and to have them judged by a panel of experts (including me). It’s free, open to everybody (including press), and will be great fun. It’s also a chance to meet top lexicographers from many American and British dictionary publishers.

Erin McKean, organizer of this year’s conference, has the details: Saturday, June 16th, from 4:30 to 5:45 in Breasted Hall, at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in Hyde Park.